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Save The Date!
Join VCS for the last
Winter Walk of the Season!
Pilot Hill Farm
March 13, 1:00 pm
Walks are free and open to the public, cider and cookies will be served.
Walks are subject to change; please call ahead 508 693 9588.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
80 billion square feet of commercial space needs to be retired or
retrofitted over the next 20 to 30 years; there is an enormous market
opportunity right in front of us. - Rocky Mt. Institute
Click HERE for more on “whole building retrofits”
Conservation Calendar
Lagoon Pond Study Results
Wednesday March 2 at 2:00 PM
in the Oak Bluffs Selectmen’s Conference room located in the Oak Bluffs Library on Pacific Avenue.
Winter Wanderings
March 3, 10:30-11:30 am.
Enjoy an easy walk with Naturalist Susie Bowman on Felix Neck trails
while the leaves are down and new vistas are opened up. Warm up after
your walk with hot beverages in the Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary
Discovery Room. Members: Free. Non-members: $5 per person
Felix Neck.
Solar Greenhouse Workshop
Mar 8 - Apr 9
A five-week design experience that explores the science, art and
technology of building a food and heat producing passive solar
greenhouse. Help develop plans for a greenhouse at The FARM Institute
and for your own home. First workshop of four. 6:30 to 9 pm. $135 for
workshop. Co-sponsored by A.C.E. of MV. To register, call Sidney Morris
at 508-627-7007 ext. 104.
Community Forum: Oak Bluffs
Mar 10, 6:00 -7:30 pm
The Martha's Vineyard Museum wants to hear from you as they plan future
exhibits. What do you think should be remembered about your town? What
gives your town its distinctive character? Come share your ideas and
learn from your neighbors. Join the Museum curators in your town to help
us tell your story. Refreshments will be provided.
In Season Recipes
Old Fashioned Oyster Stew
2 pints (approximately 32 ounces) small to medium-sized raw shucked local oysters with their liquor (you can buy local West Tisbury Oysters at the Net Result)
4 tablespoons butter
3 cups milk (cream may be added to make it richer)
1 or 2 dashes Tabasco sauce (optional)
Salt and pepper to taste
Minced parsley, sliced chives, or sliced green onions
The most important factors in preparing Oyster Stew are not boil the
milk and do not overcook the oysters. Be careful to avoid overcooking
oysters, which causes them to become tough.
Drain the oysters, reserving their liquor. NOTE: I like to strain the oyster liquor with a fine strainer to remove any sand.
In a large pan over medium heat, melt butter. Add oysters and simmer
very gently for about 2 to 4 minutes or until the edges of the oysters
curl.
While the oysters are simmering, in a separate saucepan over low heat,
slowly heat the milk, cream, and oyster liquor (do not boil).
When the oysters are cooked, slowly add the hot milk mixture to the
oysters, stirring gently. Season with Tabasco, salt and pepper.
Remove from heat. Serve in warm soup bowls and garnish each bowl with
parsley, chives, or green onions and a generous pat of butter.
Makes 4 to 6 servings.
|
February 28, 2011
Local News
Lagoon Pond Study Results are in!
Lagoon Pond seen from the Sailing Camp during the VCS “Ponds in Peril” forum last summer
Due to the declining health of Lagoon Pond, the towns of Oak Bluffs and
Tisbury jointly sponsored a wastewater/nitrogen study of the pond
conducted by Mike Giggey of Wright Pierce Engineering through the
Martha’s Vineyard Commission. Giggey has will be on the Island to
present his findings on Wednesday March 2nd at 2:00 PM in the
Oak Bluffs Selectmen’s Conference room located in the Oak Bluffs Library
on Pacific Avenue. The report should help both towns move forward with plans for improving the water quality of this important pond.
Click HERE for information on the VCS “Ponds in Peril” advocacy program and the next steps needed to save our Great Ponds!
What makes a Great Pond great?
Tisbury Great Pond
Martha's Vineyard is fortunate to have 27 beautifully diverse coastal
salt ponds that occupy nearly 9,000 acres of surface area. However,
beauty alone does not a Great Pond make.
In order to hold the classification “Great”, a pond must be over ten
acres in size and, according to the Massachusetts Department of
Environmental Protection, "Ponds that once measured 10 or more acres in
their natural state, but which are now smaller, are still considered
Great Ponds." There are sixteen Great Ponds on the Vineyard and every
town is able to boast at least one within its borders. Where are they?
Chilmark:
Blackpoint Pond
Chilmark Pond
Squibnocket Pond (Gay Head)
Tisbury Great Pond (West Tisbury)
Edgartown:
Herring/Edgartown Great Pond
Jobs Neck Pond
Oyster Pond
Paqua Pond
Trapps Pond
Gay Head:
Squibnocket Pond (Chilmark)
Oak Bluffs:
Crystal Lake
Farm Pond
Lake Anthony/Oak Bluffs Harbor
West Tisbury:
Homer Pond
James Pond
Long Pond/Long Cove
Tisbury Great Pond (Chilmark)
Watcha Pond
How do we measure up to Nantucket? They have two; Quicks Hole Pond and Westend Pond.
Push Back on Land Based Wind
By Mark Robinson
Serious, far-along proposals by town governments for wind turbines on
the Cape have now been defeated or withdrawn in Eastham, Wellfleet,
Orleans, Harwich and Brewster. Other large-turbine proposals have been
rejected in Barnstable and Dennis by the Old Kings Highway Historic
District Commission, the latter on a barrier beach. The Cape and
Vineyard Energy Collaborative (CVEC) has stopped subsidizing new
planning efforts (up to $500,000 for studies and permits), expecting
towns to share in the upfront costs.
The Brewster Planning Board voted 3-3-1 last week, failing to provide
the minimum five votes needed for twin 400-foot turbines on Town
industrial park land to be leased to CVEC, a county-sponsored
collaborative. Even though the turbines would have been more than 1800
feet from the nearest home, the neighborhoods rose up to encourage the
Planning Board to defeat them. The Selectmen and Town Manager fully
supported turbines as a revenue producer for town. An appeal is unclear
as yet.
Biodiversity, Food Safety and Genetically Modified Food
A critical aspect of “sustainable” living on Martha’s Vineyard and
elsewhere involves awareness of food safety and how food production
impacts biodiversity.
In 2010, 86 percent of US maize and 93 percent of soybeans were
genetically modified. On January 27, the U.S. Department of Agriculture
announced the deregulation of a GM alfalfa variety resistant to the
widely-used herbicide Roundup. Food safety advocates are deeply
concerned that “Roundup Ready Alfalfa” (RRA) will become invasive in
natural environments and, among other things, have negative effects on
biodiversity.
More biodiversity means more species, more complex interactions among
different species, leading to a more stable and healthy ecosystem.
Protecting this stability will be an increasingly important adaptation
response to climate change.
One of the concerns about genetically modified (GM) plant varieties is
that they pass their new traits on to wild relatives, changing their
role in the ecosystem by, for example, enabling them to out-compete
other species, resulting in reduced biodiversity.
In the agriculture industry, weeds are a costly threat, so GM plants
that tolerate weed-killing herbicides are viewed as desirable. This
tends to cause the loss of cultivar biodiversity through the use of only
a handful of varieties, leading to the unintended consequence of more
vulnerability to pest and disease outbreaks.
The powerful seed industry promoting RRA using the slogan, “grow the
feed, not the weeds” argued: “in these difficult economic times,
America’s farmers need every advantage to stay competitive and help
provide a reliable, affordable food supply for the U.S.” Rejecting that
argument, Maria Rodale, author and CEO of Rodale, Inc. wrote, “Every
once in a while an issue comes along that is so shockingly wrong, that
people seem to spontaneously unite in opposition. This is one of those
times.”
Read more about “What’s Wrong With GE Alfalfa” HERE
and HERE. |
